Traficante de droga

Who becomes a drug dealer and why?
Profiling the Mexican drug trafficker

by Viridiana Rios
English translation by Stephanie Delgado-Garcia

“This job is nice (…) but dangerous”
Self-identified drug dealer

Drug trafficking is the fifth largest employer in the country. Recent estimates show that in Mexico, there are 468,000 people who work in the drug industry (Rios and Sabet 2008); this is five times as many than in the Mexican wood industry and tree time as many personnel than Pemex, the oil company with the largest number of employees in the world. Peasants, killer, vigilantes, dealers, lawyers, doctors, secretaries; drug trafficking need all and employs everyone.

Source: Legal manufacture workers were reported by Aregional 2007 as part of the national economic census. Number of employees dedicated to drug production corresponds to the official agricultural data reported by the Mexican Office of the General Attorney (PGR as cited by Andreas 1998) plus author’s estimation of other drug-related employments. Author’s estimation is based in Lee 1989. The last official report of drug agricultural employment comes from the nineties, therefore the number of employees of other industries were extracted to match such data (July 1995).

The success of the drug trafficker in terms of hiring is based at least partially, in the economic prospectives the business offers. In the end, getting involved with drug trafficker requires certain character or as “El Cholo” --a drug dealer and self-proclaimed inventor f the “style of killing and covering”-- says: “I am very violent and I like killing (Emeequis 2008).”

The truth of the matter is that other than economic variables, individual preferences play an important role/factor in the decision to join organized crime. The drug trafficker likes his job and he likes it more than any other job he could obtain in the legal realm.
With just a quick look at the drug dealer potential labor market one